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Now is the time for change
Because of terrorism and oil, Africa might stop being an afterthought By Laurie Goering Tribune's Africa correspondent Published February 6, 2005 For 30 years, foreign aid has trickled into Africa with little
noticeable effect. The continent today has the dubious distinction of being the only place in the world that is actually getting poorer, even as the United Nations pushes to halve world poverty by 2015. Nearly eradicated diseases such as polio are returning, and millions die each year not only of AIDS but of everyday scourges like diarrhea and malaria. After years of grand but failed African aid plans, jobs are still few, education is still poor and the continent's share of global trade remains so small it barely registers. So when a dream team of international aid advocates--entrepreneur Bill Gates, singer Bono, former U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair among them--stood up at the World Economic Forum meeting last month in Davos, Switzerland, and said now is the time to change Africa with increased aid, there was more than a little skepticism in the audience. But, remarkably, the men might just be right. While efforts to reverse Africa's woes still face huge obstacles, an interesting set of new pressures in Africa, Europe and the United States suggests this might be the most auspicious time yet to try to shock Africa out of its stagnation and misery. "This is the moment," agreed John Stremlau, head of international relations at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. "There are convergences in the north and in the south on Africa right now. They may not be sufficient, but Bono's statement that this is Africa's moment resonates with me." The world's most desperate continent has long been an afterthought on the world agenda. But that has begun changing recently for two important reasons: terrorism and oil. The United States, worried about how disruptions of Middle East oil supplies might affect its economy, has begun looking in earnest for alternatives and has settled on Africa as one viable option. Known African reserves are dramatically smaller than those in troubled Iraq and other big oil nations, but new supplies are coming on line in places like Chad and Equatorial Guinea as well as old standbys like Nigeria and Angola. Leaders in the United States and Europe also have taken a look at Africa's juxtaposition to the Middle East and at the continent's substantial Muslim population, and decided that if combating terrorism is a new world priority, reducing the region's misery and frustrations might ultimately make it a less fertile recruiting ground for terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda. "Africa is not the front line of the war against terrorism. But it could soon be," Bono warned at Davos. Africa, meanwhile, is making efforts of its own to ensure that any aid sent south is used effectively rather than being squandered as in the past. Under the new African Union, a reformulation of the failed Organization of African Unity, leaders are drawing up plans and priorities for African development rather than relying on ideas mandated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which have often proved failures in the past. Promising signs Just as importantly, African nations are showing a few early signs of a real commitment to ending the continent's interminable wars, holding fair elections and sanctioning bad governments. Many African countries have now signed African Union protocols agreeing to uphold human rights and principles of democratic governance. Some have agreed to submit to "peer review" of their policies by neighboring states. The number of fair democratic elections is growing, economic growth continentwide is expected to average 5 percent this year, and many long-standing conflicts--in Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone and southern Sudan--are now at an end. Those changes come as new reports suggest richer countries may be willing to boost aid--and that dramatic boosts might actually work. A new United Nations study headed by Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University suggests that if rich nations double their international aid to poor countries from a quarter of 1 percent of their income to a half of 1 percent--something he called "utterly affordable"--extreme poverty worldwide could be cut by half in 10 years. Britain's government, meanwhile, also plans to use its position this year as head of the G-7 group of rich countries and of the European Union to push hard for doubling aid to Africa and winning a better deal for the continent at trade talks. Britain's new Commission for Africa--an effort compared to the U.S. Marshall Plan for Europe after World War II--aims to raise an extra $50 billion from rich countries, a doubling of current aid. The United States, however, potentially one of the biggest donors, may not be so receptive to dramatic boosts in spending for Africa. Faced with soaring budget deficits and huge new spending on the war in Iraq and on domestic programs, it may already have trouble even meeting a promised commitment to boost funding for its anti-poverty Millennium Challenge Account from $1 billion worldwide this year to $5 billion next year. Unlike Britain, it has made no promises to double aid spending, which now accounts for just two-tenths of 1 percent of its national income, one of the lowest rates among developed countries. Hurdles to overcome Other obstacles stand in the way of fixing Africa's problems. While many countries are making progress toward good governance, corruption remains widespread, dictators are plentiful and democracy is more a veneer than deep-seated commitment in many places. "Things have improved a bit in Africa, but personally I'm not satisfied. There's a long way to go," said Amare Aregawi, head of the Ethiopian affiliate of Transparency International, an independent corruption watchdog group. Governments like Ethiopia's, he said, are still reluctant to give civil society and a free media a real role in the country, and that makes it harder to ensure money is well-used. And Ethiopia, he noted, is one of the countries that Sachs' UN report holds up as a model. "In many countries, things are even worse," Aregawi said. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade also points to a lack of capacity to implement programs. Years of dictatorship, mismanagement and corruption have driven many well-trained Africans away from the continent, he said, and now Africa struggles to effectively use aid money provided. Still, trying to make a big push forward is key, he and others said. If Africa isn't rewarded for its increasingly good behavior, that behavior may not persist, they say. Conversely, if serious assistance is finally offered, Africa may find new resolve to tackle its problems and winch itself out of misery. "At the end of the day, Africans still have to solve Africa's problems," Stremlau said. But a shared commitment to struggle, he said, is "of considerable importance." Copyright � 2005, Chicago Tribune |
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